A Toast to Dreaming 2016

I first found Robert Moss’s work in 1997. Jim and I were vacationing on wild and rocky Monhegan Island.  I took many solitary walks along the rustic paths crisscrossing the island where no cars are allowed, drinking in all the changing majesty of that place.  On some walks, I took my Walkman with me (imagine!) and listened to my first of his works, Robert’s audiobook, “Dream Gates”.  I had some wonderful tiger dreams on that island, and a new treasure trove of insights to use in my dream play.

After that, I began reading Robert’s books, taking workshops with him and happily partnering with him and my husband, Jim, to add video to his teaching outreach, (now in download formats at psycheproductions.net.)

Although I’d been teaching dreamwork for many years, I knew Active Dreaming was IT for me.  In my teacher trainings with Robert and so many amazing, gifted dreamers that are today, old friends, I dreamed myself teaching Active Dreaming, like I’m doing now, every chance I get.

I’m blessed to be a guest on the faculty of the innovative East coast graduate oasis, The Graduate Institute.  TGI has been graced with many high profile teachers, such as the ever more wonderful, Dr. Bernie Siegel.  I have the privilege of presenting my course, “Active Dreaming for Health and Healing” in the Integrative Health and Healing Master’s program.  The really wonderful thing about this is that the people who choose this program are hungry to break the boundaries of constricting old mental paradigms and move into the 21^st century of healing arts.  They recognize dreaming as one of the cornerstones.  I’m like a gopher in soft dirt!

This past December, I had the opportunity to journey with about 15 TGI dream explorers, with permission, as always, into the dream of a group member.  The second she began her detailed description of the landscape where she encountered the mother black bear and her three cubs, I was in my dream, "Bear Country".  In a post this August, I shared my experiences with Black Bears (who have been tracking me in dreams all year) and my dawning understanding that not only must I do more to educate myself and work for the benefit of our natural world, but the call is out to many, many people through the dream worlds, often in the guise of Black Bear.  

This is why I find Active Dreaming to be the most fruitful framework for personal or group dream exploration.  Things happen that you couldn’t plan if you tried in a group; we all experience the numinous thrill of recognizing that there is much more to dreaming and dream sharing than analyzing the message could possibly deliver.  Re-entry experiences fill out our dream experiences in valuable ways.

Everyone could see that the dreamer was visibly heartened by the dream, her own re-entry and the experiences of her dream shared with her by others.  I’m so often empowered by the synchronicities and the “aha” moments popping like flashbulbs around the group, whether we’re doing Lightning Dreamwork, Dream Theater or Re-entry.  I’ve learned, it’s not me, it’s us and all that comes from respecting the powers that speak to us in dreams.  

I’m taking this opportunity to thank Robert for the great gift he’s given the world in developing this approach and in his ever more expanded teaching of it.  I’d also love to hear from all sister and brother Active Dreamers about your own experience of sharing dreams through Active Dreaming.  It really works, right?  May all our doors and gates and paths be open…

And may the peace that passes all understanding be ever in our hearts.

Go Find Me

I had the excellent idea that to grow my dream teaching practice I would start a Go Find Me campaign where I ask all I know to consider me as a wonderful potential speaker at an event, preferably paid, but under some circumstances gratis.  Or, if you have a group of friends, at least six, who want to have a dream party playshop and you live in my driving distance, call me and I'll explain my work and my fee.

I love to teach dream work.  Most people who learn from me seem to love it, too.  So, I could use my friends and students's help in getting out there more.  Thanks so much.

But it's more than what I want to do; it's what I think I'm here to do.  And, I'm not alone.  There are some AMAZING dream teachers out there, on a global scale, like my teacher, Robert Moss, and inspiring teachers on a smaller scale in many communities.  I think there's a very good reason for this; dreaming is a vital skill for achieving spiritual independence. It can help us get the world out of the present human quagmire that's choking all life on this exquisite planet.  How?  By helping us focus on our real spirituality, dreaming is a connection to where we came from and where we're going.

Why do we need this bridge; spiritual independence from what?  From the tyranny of religion, from dogma. No one can tell you that you are a sinner, that Love can be withheld for disobedience.  No one can separate you from the true Spirit Being you are.  How can I know this? Every night I travel in another body, not my physical body, and sometimes, the things I experience as this being blow the doors off my previous waking perceptions and make me feel I am not alone and that I'm truly loved.  Love is a huge, creative, forgiving and humorous presence in my dreams.  It's a resource available to anyone who pays attention to more than waking reality.

Yes, PTSD dreams and severe nightmares need very special attention, but for many people, dreams are an avenue, perhaps a very neglected one, leading to true self awareness and self love.  I'm guessing that's why I volunteered for a tour on the physical plane right now, at this time, in my place, because so much depends on us learning that nothing can conquer Love.  No fear of some spiteful Father can eclipse the natural energy that is our very own nature, a nature we constantly share with the Divine.  It doesn't matter how we speak of Love, what name we call it; it does matter how we Show what what we profess to Know.

The universal need to love and be loved exists because it is our Source; it's who we all are regardless of geographic place or cultural space. We were all born of woman and we will all dissolve with all the sacred elements of this planet at a physical level; we will all die. That's what I call a tour of duty or a lifetime; this lifetime, as opposed to perhaps others, past or parallel or to come.

Here on this plane, at this time we have an opportunity to turn things around, to replace Fear, Anger, Hate and Cynicism with Love.  There are many saying this, like those who practice and teach Mindfulness; Pema Chodron and Eckhart Tolle come to mind, but, gratefully, there are a host of others.  We're experiencing a spiritual revolution.  Is the media reporting it?  Not much, but Oprah does a good job introducing new concepts and many people are finding books or teachers that are challenging the toxic paradigms making us suffer so unnecessarily. The revolution may not be mainstream, but more people now realize that belief creates a psychic paradigm that dictates all we do and say and that is responsible for our joy or sorrow.  When we believe things that oppress, limit and make us submissive, we lose the natural love of life we're born with.  When we're discouraged from loving ourselves by the firm edict that we're born in need of redemption and God's got some conditions we need to meet, if we're going to get any love from Him, we eventually turn on ourselves and believe we are unlovable.  We let charlatans put these ideas in our heads and then we self-police ourselves and create a world in dire need of Love.

Shall I enjoy sex?  Shall I laugh, and sing and cause the rafters to ring?  No, God is constantly asking us to suffer, just like He let his only son do.  Was that His pound of flesh decision, his choice, his fault? No, supposedly, it's ours for being so rotten in the first place.  This kind of catechism breeds self-loathing, a common problem these days, as most will note.  But, what kind of a father could bear to watch his son suffer, especially as some kind of appeasement for a grudge the father himself is holding?  Let it go, it was only an apple.  Good and evil is basically Love or no Love.  We all know that.

Dreaming can help us learn that.  Because my dreams have shown me a landscape for my death transition, as well as allowed me to connect to those I love on the "other" side, I fear death very little.  Through dreaming, I'm already familiar with many things I'll find very helpful to know; most practiced dreamers will concur.  Yes, many of these revelatory dreams are lucid or out of body, but some incredible insights have come to me from my day to day, garden variety dreams.  It's all good.

This is a very important time in history and it's important not to be swayed by dogma and rhetoric, to be our own independent spiritual authorities. Now is the time to place our hands on our hearts and ask to feel Love, to be able to give Love and to receive it.  What we stand for as Americans and as human beings is at stake.  The American dream was always about freedom, escape from tyranny - usually religious tyranny.  Now, maybe for the last century, it's about money.  But since we will all be exiting this planet, a question that we've relegated to the compartment of religion, what happens after this, is really the most important question to answer.  Money is not a necessary commodity once we no longer have a physical body; goddess only knows when it became such a tyranny in the physical.  It wasn't always so.

Once greater number of people connect to their own dreaming resources, religions that manipulate the followers they attract  to exclusivity, to the point of violence, hatred and fear against all others, will no longer be the dangerous monopolies they've become.  It's liberating to know that I have nothing to fear from death, but that I have something to live for on the physical, enough to commit to the here and now and trust the help that I know is available to me spiritually.  The more we Love, the more certain we can be of being reunited with Love.  The more we all Love, the more Real will be the experience of Love on this planet.

Now is a very good time to become a dream explorer.  I hope I can help.